


Big Dreams

by studentnumber24601 (queenitsy)



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-12
Updated: 2009-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-07 06:21:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenitsy/pseuds/studentnumber24601
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack dreams big, but it's different when he has a chance to make it real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Big Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HarmonyAngel](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=HarmonyAngel).



Jack Kelly dreamed big. There was no two ways about it.

For so long, it had been Santa Fe. Not just working as a ranch hand, but owning his own ranch. Maybe the biggest ranch in New Mexico. He was sure that if he'd gotten on the train, he could have done it. But he couldn't just leave his boys, could he?

_"It won't just happen," David said, and raked a hand through his curls. "You have to -- it's a real opportunity, a real chance! If you let this pass you by, you'll always regret it."_

_"It ain't that easy, though! I can't -- I just -- I ain't like you. I don't know words."_

_"But you know papers." David shook his head, something else creeping into his voice. Something less kind, something Jack had nearly never heard before. "You know stories. That's what you sell. And..."_

_"Dave?"_

_"He asked you,_ Jack. _Not me."_

Being a leader came next. After the strike, he was a leader of men -- well, boys. But still, he was a leader. He took care of them. But he thought now and then about what he could do. Join the army, work his way up. He could organize troops, couldn't he? Couldn't be too hard to become an officer. Couldn't take too long.

But the thing was, Jack didn't exactly like taking orders. It wasn't that he loved giving them, either; hell, sometimes looking after all those kids, keeping them out of the Refuge and making sure no one starved on the streets, was too much. Overwhelming, kinda. He wasn't sure he really wanted to do that forever, taking care of people, sometimes in life-or-death situations.

_"So are you going to do it?" David glanced up from his school book and the lines of perfect script that seemed to flow effortlessly from his pencil. _

_Jack now knew it didn't flow like that for him. The words didn't come easily and they certainly didn't look neat. Not like David's beautiful letters._

_"I _done_ it, Dave. I just -- I don't know. What if he don't like it?"_

_"Jack."_

_"I never done nothing like this before, is all."_

_David's face softened, and the furrow of his brow lightening and the edges of his mouth crinkling. "Would you like me to look at it first?"_

Jack was kind of sick of things being life or death, actually. Living hand to mouth wasn't fun. He'd be happy just to never sleep outside again, to have a bed and a blanket every night. But that was like ranching in Santa Fe; why bother if it wasn't the biggest, the best? He'd seen inside Pulitzer's mansion. Why couldn't he have that?

The thing was, he could. He was sure he could, if he tried for it. Joe Pulitzer made it rich off newspapers, didn't he? And Jack knew newspapers. He'd grown up living and breathing them; they were how he kept himself fed and clothed. He was sure he could tell a story that would sell, that people would want to read.

Denton had made the offer. There were hundreds of thousands more poor people in New York than there were rich, and they all wanted stories about people like _them_. Jack was one of them. He knew them. And he'd done the amazing, when he'd stopped the _World_. If Jack wrote his story, they'd all read it, Denton said, and his editor agreed.

Jack just had to write it.

_He'd never been as scared as when he paced across the Jacobs' tiny kitchen, while David sat at the table and poured over the sheet of paper. Not when he'd been in jail, not when he'd listened to the judge bang the gavel and seal his future away, not even when Pulitzer had yelled right in his face._

_But if David looked up and told him it was bad, or he'd done it wrong -- David,_ David the walking mouth, David who knew words as well as Jack knew stories. David who read books and went to school and deserved to be the one writing this, but Denton had chosen Jack for some reason. And if David hated it, if he thought it was bad...__

_Jack clenched his hands into fists, unclenched them, tugged his bandanna off, fiddled with a button. His paced in time with his heartbeat, hoping the footsteps would drown it out._

But Jack didn't need the fancy office or the mansion or the fortune, not really. He didn't need a ranch, didn't need to give orders. He didn't need much at all. He liked to dream big, but this -- this article, this _chance_ \-- didn't _feel_ big. It felt alright, but it didn't feel like a future.

Because now Jack _knew_ what his future felt like. It felt like blue eyes and curly hair and crinkly smiles.

_"It's perfect."_

And it wasn't big, but it was all he needed.


End file.
